Sensing bushfire

Bushfires are an enduring part of the Australian landscape. While much research has explored community preparations and responses to disasters, there is little understanding of sensory engagements with hazards. In this chapter, we explore interviews with residents who had recently experienced a bushfire in Tathra, a small seaside town in south-eastern Australia. These interviews contain rich details of the sounds of the wind and fire and the smell of smoke inter alia that constitute embodied and sensory engagements with the bushfire. We focus on these bodily experiences to rethink the mobilities of people, boundaries and hazard ‘events’. We suggest that a focus on sensory experiences of hazards provides a fuller understanding of more-than-human (im)mobilities and the continual becoming of place.